Mysterious Object Hovers Near Atlantis

Nasa is currently tracking a mysterious object that apparantly is traveling in orbit between the shuttle and earth. The object appears to be matching
speed with Atlantis.

www.space.com
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA mission controllers are tracking a mystery object hovering between the space shuttle Atlantis and Earth, and traveling
at roughly the same speed as the orbiter, agency officials said Tuesday.

“Right now they’re just tying to figure out exactly what it is, how far away it is,” NASA spokesperson Kimberly Harle told SPACE.com. “It’s
pretty much assessing the whole situation.”

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Personally, i believe it is probably debris from the shuttle itself. But you never know...it could be extra-terrestial in origin. Stay tuned for
updates!

It seems that now they are pretty sure it came from the shuttle itself, either from the cargo bay or, more ominously, the shuttle's airframe:

cnn
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- NASA delayed the planned landing of the space shuttle by at least a day Tuesday after engineers spotted an object that may have
accidentally flown out of the space shuttle Atlantis' cargo bay.

Landing had been scheduled for Wednesday morning. But a poor weather forecast, and concerns that something crucial floated out of the space shuttle,
prompted the delay, space shuttle communicator Terry Virts told the crew.

now ABC is reporting that the UFO was observed shortly after sensors in the wing reported the shuttle actually hit something:

abcnews
NASA has been forced to hold off Wednesday's landing of the Shuttle Atlantis because of an object -- possibly debris -- floating nearby, shortly
after sensors in the craft's wings indicated the shuttle had been hit by something.

NASA officials want to make sure it's not a piece of the spacecraft, something that might in some way endanger the crew and ship on re-entry.

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i hope this report proves to be false....otherwise things are going to start getting dicey for the crew.

1) It is believed that the object is moving away from the shuttle at a rate of 1-2 feet/second. It is also believed that the object was
"jettisoned" from the shuttle at around 2:45am EDT Tuesday. That'll give it a bit of time to get away from the shuttle.

2) Breaking news on CNN indicates that shuttle astronauts believe they may have seen a second piece of debris floating near Atlantis.

It is currently hoped that the object was dislodged during a firing of the attitude thrusters on Atlantis in preparation for planned re-entry. It is
entirely possible that the debris is entirely benign and is simply a piece of equipment which is normally stowed in the shuttle's cargo bay but was
improperly stowed and came loose as a result of the vibration associated with the thruster firing.

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